I currently use Pentium G3240 (3.1GHz, 2C, L3:3M, GT1, 53W, rev.C0).Assuming I replace it with Core i5-4460T (1.9GHz, 4C, L3:6M, 35W, rev.C0), will my PC be faster or slower? It seems that i5-4460T uses less power than G3240.

Faster at multi threaded tasks, perhaps a bit slower at single thread stuff. Power consumption would be about the same I think. Cheap dual core vs. T-branded chip usually shows the disparity between stated TDP and power consumption in real life.

P.S. I just found Xeon E3-1230L V3 (1.8GHz, 4C, HT, L3:8M, 25W, rev.C0), whose power consumption may be even lower.

A T-branded chip is a factory underclocked part. At full load, it will draw less power than the non T-part and that can be useful in some specific situations. My point was that despite the difference in official TDP, the real difference will not be much.

I am just wondering about the following and may not take any action.My SilverStone 300W PSU works fine with a dual-core CPU. Does 300W suffice for a quad-core CPU if I want my PC faster?

It should, but depends on the rest of components, i run a i7 4770K with a picoPSU 150XT with a 150W brick for 3 years 24/7 no issues. So its very likely you can run almost any quad core with the 300W PSU, again depends on the rest of components but its very likely that you will be able to.

I am just wondering about the following and may not take any action.My SilverStone 300W PSU works fine with a dual-core CPU. Does 300W suffice for a quad-core CPU if I want my PC faster?

As Abula said, there should be no problems.

Try to get hold of a power meter, a cheap Kill-a-Watt type should give you an estimate of your current power draw. Unless you have a power hungry graphics card or something you should have plenty of headroom.

For example, Core i5-4430 (3.0GHz, 4C, L3:6M, GT2, 84W, rev.C0).https://outervision.com/b/9jNVWu (Recommended PSU Wattage: 319 W)Does my 300W PSU suffice? A team member on another forum advised me to use this calculator. Should I ignore his advice?

Yes, that's a reasonable figure. A bit high perhaps, the motherboard is not 40W I think, the DVD perhaps not 27W. What's worrying me is the fans. 80mm and 60mm fans will often make noise while moving meaningful amounts of air. What case will you be using?

Another question: I have two USB hubs and seven USB devices. If a USB910 connector is connected to an I/O card with two USB ports connected to the hubs connected with the devices, and all devices work properly, can I assume that their total consumption does not exceed 2.5 W?

No, the power requirements are 5V 1.5A and 12V 2.0A. That's worst case, with a good margin to be sure, and the drive will not ever draw that much in real life. When the drive isn't in use it will draw 1W or less. So seldom do I use optical these days, that I've switched to a USB powered exernal drive.

I don't get what number you are looking for. If you want highest power, that means that you do everything at once. You burn a DVD at full speed while at the same time running Prime95 and torture testing the HDD and graphics, and also memory. All at once. Then I'd say you get close to the figure Steve suggested above. 65W (CPU) + 30-50W for everything else = 95-115W.

5V × 1.5A ＋ 12V × 2.0A ＝ 31.5 W. That is the highest consumption, which is not very likely in real life. Am I right?

What it says about power consumption is indirectly. The power requirements are stated. So we can conclude that the device should not draw more than that. But it says nothing about the actual power consumption, either maximum or typical.

Matthew Wai wrote:

I want the highest power, out of interest and for safety.

You want to know how much power the system will draw, worst case. So that you can choose a PSU accordingly? Or is it heat, you want things to stay cool enough?

And SilverStone make decent stuff. That 300W unit will be more than enough, unless it's ancient with weak +12V rail. Usually it's the other way around when building a low power system; you end up with a overpowered power supply because there simply is no market for very low power stuff. The picoPSU is what I like to use for my low power systems.

Interesting. 500mA is just the USB specification. How it works in the real world depends on a lot of stuff. I'm guessing both ports can deliver 500mA just fine but the drive needs a bit more while spinning up. The +5V and ground for both these ports are the same. There's resistance in the traces and the cables and there's a limit on how much you can load there. There are cheap small USB meters, I have a couple from eBay. You connect it in series before the load and you can see how much you are pulling.

The cables matter in my experience. I want a good short cable from one of the back ports. Using the onboard headers and the front ports is convenient but if power delivery is important, use the back ports if you can. And while I have little experience with USB hubs, I hear the powered ones are preferred to avoid power issues.

I'm guessing both ports can deliver 500mA just fine but the drive needs a bit more while spinning up.

If it needed more than 500mA, it would not spin up using a back port, which presumably provides no more than 500mA. However, it does spin up using a back port. My guess is that the said USB1112 header provides a bit less than 1000mA altogether for the two ports, and charging the phone uses the maximum 500mA available in one port (while the charger says "5V 2A") .

My USB910 header is directly connected with two ports without an I/O card. I just plugged the HDD into port 2 when port 1 was charging the phone. The HDD did not spin up initially but spun up after a while, so I think the problem with USB1112 lies in this front panel I/O card, which probably causes a little resistance, the culprit.

AVX are extensions to the x86 instruction set architecture for microprocessors from Intel and AMD proposed by Intel in March 2008. AVX provides new features, new instructions and a new coding scheme.

AVX was introduced around the Sandy bridge era, AVX2 with Haswell.

Essentially its a feature of CPUs, some new programs do use them, usually the power draw is higher, and in most cases the CPU heat up more, thus most mothebroards now a days also have offsets for this kind of operation.

As a computer idiot, I know nothing about them and will probably never use them.

blankus wrote:

An Intel CPU can draw a lot more power than it's rated TDP

As an ordinary home user, I can't think of a situation where I will use a CPU that way.

I'm very sorry if I gave you the impression that you are "computer idiot" for that was not my intention at all. English is not my mother tongue.

The AVX/AVX2 instructions are used in some software to improve performance. The Prime95 torture test is far from common usage but useful for stability and temperature test, for me at least. My opinion is that for Intel CPU one should think of TDP more as a lower limit than upper limit when building a PC.

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